Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use - Solved

Started by niagarasys

Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use - Solved   12 April 2018, 12:29

Prior to reformatting my system with a fresh install of Windows 10 and Softperfect RAM Disk 4.0.5, I had close to the same version of Windows 10 with an older version of Softperfect RAM Disk, I believe 4.0.3. I saved my 12GB RAM disk and carried it into this install, mounted it, but it takes more than a minute to mount the disk and the hard drive is heavily accessing. In fact, it's too useable to be useful for temporary files as the OS fully loads with desktop and other apps long before the drive is mounted. I didn't seem to have this issue with the older version (4.0.3 ?)

Wondering if maybe it's a system I/O problem, I installed Dataram RAMDisk with a 12GB RAM disk and it loaded up immediately without issue prior to the OS booting up. It seems Dataram's software is preloading the RAM disk at boot while SoftPerfect is loading it after boot.

I don't see a lot of options in the app to determine what I could be doing wrong - does anyone have any advice?
Attachments:
open | download – mounting.png (49.3 KB)
SoftPerfect Support forum - Andrew avatar image

Re: Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use   12 April 2018, 14:57

It sounds like you were using a boot-time RAM disk earlier (with version 4.0.3), whereas now (with 4.0.5) you are using a logon-time RAM disk.

Here is a quote from the user manual:
Quote

In order to create a new RAM disk, choose Disk - Add or Disk - Add Boot Disk from the main menu. The former will create a RAM disk available when a user is logged on, the latter will create a RAM disk available immediately on system startup.


Unless you have a specific reason to use a logon-time disk, we recommend to use a boot-time one. It is mounted during system boot and will usually be available immediately after logon.

A note of caution though: Windows 10 in its default configuration uses so-called hybrid boot. As a part of it, Windows saves all allocated kernel memory to the hard drive and reloads it on next boot. It does so between shutdowns, but not between reboots. This leads to another undesirable effect where even a volatile RAM disk retains its contents between shutdowns.

If you want to use images, we recommend to turning hybrid boot off, as this article explains, and using a boot-time RAM disk rather than logon-time one.

Re: Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use   13 April 2018, 11:02

Andrew, I am using a Boot Disk, see attachment.

Hybrid boot / "Fast Boot" is disabled, referenced in another thread to advise another user. It's easier to disable it in the latest versions of Windows 10.

Upon starting up the computer, the system takes a significant amount of time to load my user profile with this 'boot' disk and it's the same disk I was using in the previous version.
Attachments:
open | download – Boot Disk.png (15 KB)
SoftPerfect Support forum - Andrew avatar image

Re: Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use   13 April 2018, 11:33

It's just that your previous screenshot was showing a logon-time disk, now it's indeed a boot-time one.

Frankly I don't see how an earlier version could have worked faster. It's a 12 GB image file that takes about a minute to load, which suggests HDD reading speed about 200 MB/s. That's a great result for a magnetic plates HDD and average result for an SSD.

I guess it depends on what you use the RAM Disk for, but there is really no point in keeping temporary files or browser caches between reboots. Perhaps it makes sense to use two disks, say 2 GB for the data that needs to be preserved and 10 GB for the data that doesn't need to.

Re: Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use   13 April 2018, 12:35

Quote

Andrew

but there is really no point in keeping temporary files or browser caches between reboots.


The problem is the folder structure. I'm using a 12GB .IMG file specifically for the pre-layed folder structure; Can we create nested folders in boot disks with the latest version? That would solve all my problems.

ie. T:\Folder1, T:\Folder1\Nest1, T:\Folder1\Nest2, etc.

Thank you for responding!
SoftPerfect Support forum - Andrew avatar image

Re: Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use   13 April 2018, 15:54

Yes, nested folders on boot-time RAM disks are supported as of version 4.0.4, please see the changelog:

SoftPerfect support forum

Re: Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use   14 April 2018, 02:29

Andrew, I'd actually tried this at the start of my attempts and it refuses to do this.

"Error adding/editing boot volume

Win32 error code = 87 The parameter is incorrect"
Attachments:
open | download – folders.png (3.4 KB)

Re: Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use   14 April 2018, 02:34

Ohh okay, I diagnosed the error - the interface doesn't like spaces. Is there a trick for creating folders with spaces?

If this can work with spaces my problem is solved entirely as the boot time with the precreated folders is perfectly fast!
SoftPerfect Support forum - Andrew avatar image

Re: Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use   14 April 2018, 12:07

Hmm, that's odd. I am able to create a boot-time RAM disk with nested folders with spaces and even foreign characters as you can see below:

Perhaps you are using an incompatible file system or illegal characters in the name?

SoftPerfect support forum

SoftPerfect support forum

Re: Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use   14 April 2018, 12:51

Andrew, thank you for taking the time to guide us to the issue.

After going through my folder structure I diagnosed the problem - if the text is pasted into the text box past the boundaries the previously attached error will appear and you cannot get your folders. Sometimes.

This issue is hard to reproduce perfectly, sometimes the next line will become another folder and sometimes it will error out.

If you try to create a folder with this structure you should see the error:

1234567890\ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ\12345
SoftPerfect Support forum - Andrew avatar image

Re: Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use   14 April 2018, 19:38

This appears to be caused by blank lines, e.g. the error is shown when a blank line is present amongst folder names.

Try deleting any blank lines so that only folder names are present. In the upcoming new version, we'll just strip blank lines automatically.

Re: Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use   15 April 2018, 11:04

Sorry, I should have stated that I was referring to the single line by itself:
1234567890\ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ\12345

That's just an example.

If I add that line as it is, just that line alone, I will get error code 87. The issue is between the final 4 and 5, when the text goes over the line it will cause the error meaning I can't have a folder path that is greater than 42 characters long or it will result in error code 87.

Perhaps you could allow for longer folder paths in that version as well? That would be awesome.
SoftPerfect Support forum - Andrew avatar image

Re: Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use   15 April 2018, 18:02

I see what you mean: because of the long strings being wrapped long folder names don't work properly.

We will include a fix for this in the new version, which is due to release this coming week. Thank you for pointing this out.

Re: Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use   16 April 2018, 00:35

No, thanks for your interactions and the future update! I can't wait!

My preconfigured folder layout has a number of folders that go pretty deep so if I can use that it will fix everything... and it will make SoftPerfect Ramdisk the fastest at-boot RAM disk software as I don't believe any other software has the ability to deploy a folder layout in advance of the OS without using an IMG file which as you stated takes a while to load on even the fastest disks.

Re: Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use   16 April 2018, 01:57

What if you allowed double quotes to delineate lines similar to what's allowed in Windows from a command line?
SoftPerfect Support forum - Andrew avatar image

Re: Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use   16 April 2018, 16:08

The long folder names issue was merely caused by word-wrapping of the UI field. When a folder name exceed the field's size, it would span over two lines misleading the RAM disk driver.

The solution is rather trivial: disabled word-wrapping in the folder names field. Please download and install newly released version 4.0.6 from the home page and everything should be fine now.

Re: Ram disk in v4.0.5 is very slow to load and use   17 April 2018, 09:06

Andrew... it's awesome! Works great! Thank you for the fast update!

You can rename this thread to Ram disk in v4.0.6 is very fast to load and works great!!!

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